We are so vain!

We geeks seem to have a peculiar attachment to quantifying things. I was about to headline this post as “The Horrors of Living Without Being Like-d”… See that “Like” button underneath the post? Do you know what I think of? There has to be more to life than just “like” and “follow”. I can understand wanting to provide a supportive environment for colleagues, but sometimes, a little criticism might not be a bad idea (if only I’d have a “auto-mute” button…), LOVINGLY ADMINISTERED, OF COURSE!

I want to make something of myself —I believe it’s called a statue—, and I love to get a Segan —a tribute to Carl Sagan and his catchphrase “billions and billions”— of “Likes” on each of my posts. Who doesn’t? … But … But I shudder to think how many BS buttons might have been hit on some of them! Probably many of these “srewollof” didn’t spend half nanocentury —two shakes of a lamb’s tail— reading the posts. As I believe integrity is telling myself the truth, and honesty is telling the truth to other people, I decided to put on my Columbo raincoat and sniff out the answer —although unlike in his episodes, I don’t have the previous “whodunit” element. So I had an idea: to publish an empty page —unlike posts they’re displayed on the blog front page— and see what is going on. I’ve been tempted, just tempted, but “timethief” did it here.

I didn’t.

In brief. Lucy van Pelt is credited in the comic strip Peanuts to have discovered the axiom “happiness is a warm puppy”. The proposed SI unit of happiness, Puppy, is derivable as the quantity of happiness that a one kilogram beagle puppy whose body temperature is 310 Kelvin produces when held in skin contact for one second. In other words, all these fake “Likes” —they’re robbing my enjoyment…sigh!— don’t give me a damm Puppy!

I’d rather prefer fake comments from you: One of your observations [or one insult] would represent for me the equivalent to one Warhol —famous for 15 minutes—, and 1,000 remarks would be then a Kilowarhol. Or 10,42 days. A sort of metric “ten-day wonder”.

So I have finally chosen the following option represented by picture below:

All the above has been for the tricky bunch. Now you: Real guys. You followers that are the reason I sit down to rave everyday… well, almost everyday… alright, about twice a month. You’re who read my stuff, because you can’t wait to see what other gross things happen to my damaged brain. I LOVE YOU GUYS!! And I understand you do not always have the time or the desire to say something, to write a comment.

I’m making your life easier!

From today on, below each post, you will find a few types of “Likes” customized for the occasion, which you will only have to copy and paste into the comments section. This is not only intended to help in times of indecision or laziness, it also would help to prevent situations like this: If tomorrow I make a post commenting that my father has passed away, I couldn’t see very appropriate to have 105 Likes.

So, what new buttons would you like to see on this blog?

I show you below some Dugutigui’s ideas of “Like” buttons:

For good humor posts:Girls: “Coffee came out my nose.” Boys: “I pissed my pants.”For bad humor posts: “Change the repertoire, or change followers.”When my father passes away: “I appreciate this post.”When I’ve rip off your post: “I just posted a piece about that same topic several hours ago and your post is funnier –thanks for making me look stoopid!”For you lazy (1): “Read in full but too tired to comment.”For you lazy (2): “Bored now.”For you lazy (3): “Meh.”For girls (1): “I like this post, I like you, and you’re also very attractive.”For girls (2): “Call me.”For you $#$%$# lazy: “Skimmed, bored, didn’t finish.”For repentant: “I hit ‘submit’ on my comment, and a microsecond spotted my typo. I hate that.”General purpose (liars): “I am having chest pains. Please call an ambulance.”General purpose (1): “I’d love to leave a comment, but to be honest, your writing is so good I’m intimidated and scared and can’t come up with anything clever to leave as a comment to save my life so I’ll just copy & paste instead to play it safe, but to also let you know I am simultaneously in awe and very jealous of you.”General purpose (2): “All the really clever comments have already been posted!General purpose (3): “I have nothing new to add, but I read every $#$%$# word of this post and comments, so I want you to know I was here.”For envious (1): “This was good… probably the last good thing you’ll write.”For envious (2): “How is it possible you have more followers than me? Are they all your mother?”For those who hate me (1): “WTF is your problem, A–hole?”For those who hate me (2): “Not everyone should write a blog, you know.”For those who hate me (3): “Here’s a link to ‘Hooked On Phonics.”Less hateful: I thought it was great, but this guy reading over my shoulder thought it was sloppy, derivative, and clearly hastily written. Isn’t that guy rude?”Less less hateful: “Yes, Totally Agree.”Less less less hateful: “Brilliant.”Less less less less hateful: “Bravo.”For the mid-drinking: “Oh, man, I am hi-LAR-ious!”For those who’re watching Bolivian porn: ”Detonate!”In Spanish: “Chúpame el culo”In Turkish: “Ananin amina kale kurar sabah aksam mac yaparim.”In German: “Du verdammter arschficker.”In French: “Sais-tu combien de temps ta mère prend pour chier? Neuf mois!”In Indonesian: “Anda adalah hasil dari kondom rusak.”In Bengali: “Pedo pundit.”In Portuguese: “Vou-te cagar na boca.”In Mandarin: “Wo cao ni ba bei zi zu zong.”In Swahili: “Una tombwa na punda.”

As you can see, the possibilities are endless. Feel free to add your own…
Starting with next post, this will be the standard procedure. You won’t have any excuse left to not comment.

Now, if you will excuse me, I must go plunder the blogosphere for ideas I can rip off… (AND DON’T FORGET TO HIT THE DAMM LIKE BUTTON BELOW).

.

“Like” button – Dugutigui

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About Dugutigui

In the “Diula” language in Mali, the term « dugutigui » (chief of the village), literally translated, means: «owner of the village»; «dugu» means village and «tigui», owner. Probably the term is the result of the contraction of «dugu kuntigui» (literally: chief of the village).

I like very much you stress-free crossroads 🙂 It’s an intelligent approach!
As you, my spare time is limited (last few days I was enjoying a short vacation), that was this answer took too long.
Re Warhol, today’s freaks (like me) have made use of, or invented, units of measurement intended primarily for their humor value. The Warhol (one of my favorites) is a unit of hype, derived from Andy Warhol’s dictum “everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes”. It represents, naturally, fifteen minutes of fame. Some multiples are:
1 kilowarhol — famous for 15,000 minutes, or 10.42 days. A sort of metric ten-day wonder.
1 megawarhol — famous for 15 million minutes, or 28.5 years.
In any case I blog for myself. I have fun! And I am surprised that most of my post are so popular I’m happy with that, but it is not my ultimate intention … 🙂
Thanks for your comment!

Leaving apart we are all somehow hypocrites [we cannot see ourselves or judge ourselves the way we see and judge others] you, in the worst scenario, will fall into the hypocrites-but-friends bunch. No really, thanks a lot for reading the post! One Warhol for me. 🙂 You are a gentleman! [I saw your avatar] 🙂 🙂

I LIKE your idea for buttons. 😀
I’ve often pondered that myself. Sometimes it doesn’t seem appropriate to “Like” something but you want to show support to the writer & let them know it was a good read.

Nothing wrong with that. I often do that myself. In fact, I think a “dislike” button is really needed, because sometimes I read the post and I do not like, but I still hit the like button, just to show my presence … My critic, in a humoristic tone, was addressed to those who do not read the post yet hit the like button. Now I’m thinking that I should have kept my mouth shut … 🙂 I hope you keep hitting the damn button in the future 🙂 🙂 🙂

How could you come with this idea? Of course not!
What I was trying to say is many people think politicians are morons. I think they are much worst than morons. A moron is a stupid person. Politicians are stupider than average stupid.

Then it should be the only thing that gets better with age. 🙂 Come to think, it’s paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn’t appeal to anyone 🙂 🙂

And the next question would be what people hitting the like button in a blank page are looking for: Weird what some people will do to get noticed, a dubious self-promoting intention 🙂
Thanks for commenting!

Oh yes, the good old like-buttons. It’s like “I got a like-button, so I am”. Sometimes I see or read really shitty posts of other bloggers with hundreds of likes and I wonder if their followers really read what they write. I certainly do read your posts, but hardly ever comment as I have so little time.

I know you are a busy person and still you find time to read my posts. So do I with your fantastic pictures, albeit rarely post a comment. Regarding shitty post I’m fully agreed with you. The funny thing is all those fake followers spend hours and hours spamming you, and all this working time represents hundreds or thousands dollars.

If one day I would fell so vain to make my blog famous I will take a different approach: For $350, I can get a message (including my blog address and my pic) on the Reuters Sing in Times Square…
Plus:
o Post to PRNewswire.com, the industry’s most trafficked website.
o Make your news findable by search and news engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo!).
o Drive traffic to your website with live site preview.
o Reach subscribers and bloggers with RSS.
o Find your release with a search-friendly permalink URL.
o Go viral with our social media toolbar.
o Optimize your message with an image.
o Distribute to the iReach syndication network of 1,000+ websites.
o Leverage your message to get links from authoritative websites.
o Measure visibility via PR Newswire’s ReleaseWatch™ reporting.
o Receive a low-resolution webcam snapshot of your photo and headline displayed on the Reuters sign.
o SocialPost(TM) – Reach 1,000s of followers of PR Newswire’s Twitter feeds. Add $59
o Embed video in your release. Add $125

So, for less of one day’s wages, you could get your Kilowarhol 🙂
In any case I’d rather stay out of the limelight until I’ve done something I feel proud of.

Thank you. Of course that is the only rational way. The post was only a humorous approach 🙂 … although deep down I wanted to analyze this “like” button issue. It’s some time it was prowling my head 🙂 Thanks for your comment!

Don’t worry. I sometimes think the exact same too about those “like” buttons. What I like more about WP is that bloggers really take a more lengthy approach and time to write their thoughts. On FB, people write small sentences and wait around to see who will “like” their “status”. Those two social sites are a world apart in that approach and in readers. Keep up the great job!

Ha ha, have considered scrapping the button myself, especially when I get ‘likes’ micro-seconds after I publish! The customised buttons are a good idea, even if they will not necessarily eliminate all the fakes 🙂

I believe so. In fact seems to me that this bloody like button has been bothering most of the bloggers… Sometimes it’s not enough to know what things mean, sometimes you have to know what things don’t mean. Thanks for your comment!

I’d love to leave a comment, but to be honest, your writing is so good I’m intimidated and scared and can’t come up with anything clever to leave as a comment to save my life. So I’ll just copy & paste instead to play it safe, but also to let you know I am simultaneously in awe and very jealous of you.

Well, we have a savory bloody mince dish with an eggy scone dough on top served with mashed carrots and Lyonnais potatoes for lunch today. I’ll check in the fridge if there is something left and send you a pick!
10Q for commenting!

Ha! Love this. I clicked like, but I did read your post first. I’ve visited many blogs that have followed mine and that have no content and lots of likes on the about page, which had nothing there except…”this is an example of a page”. I can’t remember ever clicking like on a blank page. As for leaving you an insult. I just can’t do it. Sorry. Have a lovely week. 🙂

Well that’s good and not so good at the same time. It’s great for the ego (a Warhol more), but it’s bad in the sense you’re putting me up the batten, and it appears to be very high already. 🙂 I also like your blog: your paintings and drawings are excellent.
Thanks for your comment!

Teşekkürler!
10Q for the nomination! I do not want to hurt your sensibility, I know your intentions are good, but I stopped a while accepting this type of “rewards”. The reason is simple: I have no time!
Tekrar teşekkür ederim!

“Coffee came out my nose.”Thank for making my nose burn. The real truth………“I’d love to leave a comment, but to be honest, your writing is so good I’m intimidated and scared and can’t come up with anything clever to leave as a comment to save my life so I’ll just copy & paste instead to play it safe, but to also let you know I am simultaneously in awe and very jealous of you.”
🙂

Hola y gracias, Senor Dugutigui: 🙂 you’ve made my day funnier, still smilin’… 🙂 About 3 weeks ago, I had my blog’s name and its address changed, as I was fed-up with fake and automatic/immediate “like(r)s”! 😀 Traffic hunters(LOL!) who have chosen the WP-option that crosses out any post automatically, without reading even the title of your article! Dahhh and hellooo! 😀 At my last post on Dali Museum posted before both changes: 85 likers, wow! 🙂 – and afterwards, most of the “likers” simply vanished in the vast web… 🙂 QED.
* * *
My very best and a bonus: 🙂http://myvirtualplayground.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/etre-ou-ne-pas-etre-aime-bien-to-be-or-not-to-be-well-liked/

Oh, I shan’t hit the “like” button nor shall I read over a thousand words of explanation! So I can unfollow you and you can do the same to me. I shall look to see if you ever made a comment and if it were to call attention to your blog for me to follow or I decided to maybe try a new blog.
Toodles….no hard feelings.

Wow!! You see, it’s not easy for me to comment on posts titled [as for example your]: “Yesterday I planted Five Yellow Rose Bushes”. In fact they leave me speechless. But don’t worry; I have an appropriate comment for most your posts in the future: Meh! I’m sure now you’ll be happy. I also understand and agree you can not read 1,000 words (the bush must be giving you hard time). That’s OK! Only to add, next time you have a complaint, please use the page [up on the header] to that effect. And thanks for being so funny! Your family must be always happy with you! … And no hard feelings!

So sorry I did not see a place to register a complaint which really is not a complaint. I hate the “like” button as much as everybody else and stopped blogging because of same. I suggest another button…I was here but had nothing intelligent to add.

No problem. Actually the post was a critic to those fake followers who don’t read the posts.
BTW the button you suggest is already in my post:
General purpose (3): “I have nothing new to add, but I read every $#$%$# word of this post and comments, so I want you to know I was here.”
Thanks again!

It is amazing to me the number of people who comment sometimes but fail to hit the like button. They are totally disrupting the stats….not that I pay that much attention to stats, but “Like” lets me know somebody was there!

I rather prefer people commenting, as you are doing now. Re stats there are three types of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics 🙂 and the “likes” are not telling you under any circumstances that somebody was there, unlike the comments, at least the elaborated ones …
Thanks for commenting!

Thank you.
I think, if I could corner my vanity 🙂 , I will hide the like button form next post. In the meantime yesterday I erased all the blogs I follow, and I only spare people I think read my posts, plus those blogs that I really like whatever follow me or not —yours one of the later 🙂
Thanks for commenting!

A pleasure! Too bad I can not speak Romanian, when many of the blogs that I really like are in that language! the original language of Cioran, my favorite philosopher …
Google translate is not a very reliable tool, but one way or another it captures the sense of what the writer means. In this case technology goes behind humans … 🙂

Coffee came out of my nose and l still pissed my pants! l managed to press Like before l hit the WC. Nobody will follow me there. haha Or like me (wheeping now)
Would you plz proofread this well balanced Comment for typo’s?#?! Thank You. l do hate my typo’s to show when l completely Reblog or “republish” your entire blog. l like following your blog although am not really the warm puppy people need or even want. My next stop on the Net is Google searching for: What the heck is Bolivian porn.?! l will then carefully translate to Dutch. Hope it has nothing to do with Facebook pokes from guys with funny hats. Because that is only legal in the Netherlands. ‘-D

Well, thank you!
The only word that could be misspelled is “wheeping”, but you should clarify first whether you mean weeping or wheeling, or wheezing, or whelping, or cheeping… because the meaning of the whole paragraph would change 🙂 🙂
Re Bolivian porn … due US trend to outsource 🙂 , it’s a thriving industry flooding [not only virtually] the market [as far as I know 🙂 ] in which they can film an orgy for less than a hundred bucks, with actors making only two dollars an hour, whereas the same scene may cost $25,000 here, and [from the point of view of some native actors] considered Unamerican 🙂 , though at least with Obama’s new health care plan, locals will be able to get their AIDS meds for free 🙂
And no. I’m not speaking about the communication option on Facebook especially useful in the process of overanalyzing a potential romantic interest’s feelings about you based solely on impersonal online interactions. Hahahaha!
BTW I’m not Facebook’s user 🙂

You have to consider the ongoing transformation, courtesy of WordPress, Facebook, etc., of the verb ‘to like’ from a state of mind to an action that you perform with your computer mouse: from a feeling to an assertion of consumer choice.

In any case “I like” the unusual passion you pour into most of your posts!

You talk too much, you’re far too needy slash high maintenance, and yet I concede these rights of yours and slog my way through all of this talk to assure you my ‘like’ is completely considered after thorough contemplation… Yes, I like the posts I ‘like.’ I end up liking the comments just as much. Really, though, a lot of reading needs doing and I can’t stay on just your blog with all my reading time. It’s not democratic and ….. LIKE!

You’re right. From next post I’d disable the link to the “Like” post. That doesn’t mean that I get up democratic this morning. In fact, I’ve been tempted to address you to the complaints section (top of page). All meant in good fun 🙂

A ha and ha. I’m on a slow connection here, so the “Like” button isn’t loading. Well, that’s probably for the better. We don’t want you to get too popular, correct? Thanks for the many laughs in this post, sir.

Somehow we are 🙂
In the 1932 novel Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley, conditioning plays a key role in the maintenance of social peace, especially in maintaining the caste system upon which society is based. Children are conditioned, both in their sleep and in their daily activities. They’re conditioned to be happy in their government-assigned social role as “Alphas”, “Betas”, etc., as well as, in adopting other “socially acceptable” types of behaviour, including consuming manufactured goods and transport, practicing free sex, etc. For example, earlier in the book, the director of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre shows his young visitors how a group of toddlers of the Delta caste is conditioned to avoid books and flowers, by using shrill noises to terrorise them and applying “mild electric shocks”. Also, in a later explanation by Resident World Controller of Western Europe Mustapha Mond of how their society really works, he explains how early conditioning is an essential part of how social harmony among the different castes is maintained. Lower-caste members like Epsilons are as happy as upper-caste Alpha-Pluses, in large part due to their conditioning.
In fact, one way or another all of us are getting the Ludovico technique 🙂 🙂
Thanks for your comment!

wow. awesome. you asked for comments and you got them!
I might have to re-bog this so somebody will like and comment on my blog too.
I would enjoy it more of there was a bit less blood on the revised like button. if I wanted to see blood I could have been a nurse. ha ha

Blood may be thicker than water, but it’s certainly not as thick as ketchup. Nor does it go as well with French fries. Hahahaha! (I think I gazed long enough into an abyss, and the abyss starts gazing back into me).
Thanks for the comment!

I want to like things more, but I have this natural reserve leaning towards stoicism. If I just admit that I found this article to be a thing which exists and has definite properties would that do to express my enjoyment correctly?

A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking, but as any philosophical thinking, despite its successes, in the end, always falls short of its real goal. It involves both the wonder of aspiring toward the Truth and the distress of falling short of that Truth. In this way, philosophy can be characterized as wondrous distress. Said that, the point here is there ain’t no point 🙂
As a nihilist that overemphasis the dark side of human experience, it might be equally true that this overemphasis represents a needed counterbalance to shallow optimism and arrogant confidence in human power. We are not gods … but in this world, nothing is as cruel as the desolation of not wanting anything. So just be yourself!
Thanks for your philosophical comment!